Mexico is a popular destination for college students during spring break, but the Texas A&M System has sent out a warning to caution students about traveling in Mexico.

In the travel warning that was issued for Mexico it states “the Mexican government makes a considerable effort to protect U.S. citizens and other visitors to major tourist destinations, and there is no evidence that Transnational Criminal Originations (TCOs) have targeted U.S. visitors and residents based on their nationality.”

The message goes on to say TCOs engage in “narcotics trafficking and other unlawful activities throughout Mexico. As a result, crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country and can occur anywhere. U.S. citizens have fallen victim to TCO activity, including homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.”

Dr. James J. Vardalis, the head of the Criminal Justice department said, “At one time it was a very safe and friendly place to visit and travel.”

Vardalis warned about going into border towns saying “Border towns right now are very, very dangerous. There are daylight shootings, there are gang related shootings, that should be avoided at all costs.”

Vardalis explained that one of the reasons Mexico is dangerous is the unemployment rate, because people don’t have a lot of money. He also said the illegal drug trade is driving the crime rate. “All that crime has been associated with border towns, the Juarez’s and Tijuana’s and Laredo and Matamoras those areas have been hit heavy with crime,” said Vardalis.

Vardalis said he thinks the amount of negative coverage Mexico gets is unreasonable, because there are a lot of other countries that have a much higher rate of crime compared to Mexico. He said “The unfortunate part of this, is just recently, I think in the last two or three weeks, a cruise ship land excursion was actually held up by gun point, you know when you have these cruise ships and they go on different trips on land, and one of them was taking I think around 20-25 tourists and there was a road block with some trees and some gunmen with masks, and they actually went through and held up each member of the bus for valuables.” Vardalis said that those are the things that CNN covers, but when you look at the statistics of Americans that visit Mexico and the amount of American murders, it’s relatively low.

Vardalis said that “as a criminologist I would probably suggest that a lot of these murders were based on carelessness. People going into areas that they shouldn’t go to, people traveling in dark secluded areas, things of that nature. But I think the chance of being a crime victim of staying at a decent hotel in Cabo is relatively remote.”

Vardalis added, “I can tell you this, the resort areas are very prone to sexual assaults on women because the amount of alcohol that’s drank, the amount of partying that goes on, and the local criminals prey on these people that stumble into wrong areas.”

“When you talk about the Texas A&M System warning about Mexico,” said Vardalis “I mean, it’s well thought out and it’s appropriate because often times students travel to areas and they don’t take a common sense approach to protection.”

Vardalis explained Mexico is popular because “it’s simply convenient, there are a lot of direct flights from DFW right to Cancun, right to Cabo, right to Acapulco, so it’s very convenient, it’s reasonable, it’s cheap, the money goes a lot farther down there, the weather is great, the food is great, so they have a lot of things going for them. Now, that’s the attraction.”

He also said that taking the consideration of tourists, there are other areas that offer the same attractions with a lower risk. “I would think there are places in this country that offer a lower risk like Padre Island where a lot of people are going to and they offer the same things in terms of the beach and that area. And I think that there are actually quite a few towns along the Texas border that would be of lower risks, and they offer the same things.”